


things you said

by queenstalgems (13pens)



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Gun Violence, Multi, Swearing, collection, lol like just for the jaspearl one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 03:36:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4332327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13pens/pseuds/queenstalgems
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>four ficlets, prompted from the "things you said" writing meme on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. when you were crying (pearlmethyst)

 

Things get weird when Pearl cries.

“You don’t understand,” she’d say, the tears coming out of her the size of her fists. “And you _can’t_ understand. Leave me alone.”

“Okay,” you’d say back, and maybe the shake in your voice didn’t quite match the way you shrugged and turned away. “ _Whatever_.”

 

*

 

Things were different before Rose left. Pearl was hardly a cry baby but sometimes, like after a mission and it got too quiet, Pearl had visions of things she just couldn’t forget. Sometimes when she couldn’t brag about how well she took down enemies with whatever kung fu ballet technique she’d perfected she just looked at the spear in her hand and _remembered_. 

She’d hold it in until she thought no one was looking, and you –– you didn’t know that she’d wanted to be alone. But when you crawled up next to her and sat in her lap and held her face, when you smiled and went, aww, P, pieróg, persimmon, pearl-tato. What’s wrong? Why are you crying? Do you want to play? Let’s dance.

Pearl smiled at you a lot. She wouldn’t tell you to go away, to leave her alone. Instead she would hug you and say  _I’m sorry_.

You didn’t know why, not at the time. She wouldn’t really tell you why until much later, anyway. But it was those things,  _those_  things, that were weird. What happens after Rose is gone isn’t weird. It’s just painful.

But you call the things you feel when Pearl cries weird anyway, because what happens to you when you say things just get worse? That things get broken?

 

*

 

You wonder if Pearl has ever cried because of you. Sometimes you want something to happen to you just so she would. 

Maybe that’s why you do such dangerous things, why you’re so careless about yourself. It’s not just fun. It’s an anticipation.

But even as you were this close to being a goner it still –– they took you to the _fountain_  of all places and now, with traces of Rose literally _everywhere,_ inescapable, literally every corner, even just in the form of a fucking _scabbard ––_

“Fine!” you shouted. You shouted because if you didn’t you’d start to do something else. Pearl ran and didn’t even look at you. “Go cry about it!”

 

* * *

 

That was long, long ago, now. Rose and Pearl and Garnet always felt things go by so quickly on Earth but you feel every minute like they were hours sometimes. And sometimes that’s excruciating, because everything bad suddenly feels like they last forever.

But when you’re sitting in between Pearl’s legs with her chin resting on the top of your head, it’s a forever you’re down with. 

“I’m sorry,” she says. You can feel acutely the droplets of tears lightly soaking your hair. “I’ve said and done….the things I let my memory of Rose get in the way of, I…”

Pearl has always had a bad case of foot-in-mouth but ever since she told you she loved you, too ( _she_ loves you she _loves_ you she loves _you_ ), she moves and talks as if the way she breathes will change your mind. Kind of like the way you act, too.

“Eh,” you begin, holding her face, just like how you used to, and thumbing away the blobs running down her cheek, just like how _she_  used to when _you_ cried. “We’re cool now, P.”

She laughs and she doesn’t sound as weary as she feels. “Yeah. We’re _cool_. _Chill_. Climatically tolerable.”

“Yeah, don’t make it weird.”


	2. when you were scared (jaspearl)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (this is a human AU that basically boils down to: jasper and peridot get into Some Shit and pearl is a pianist)
> 
> (heh)

There were three things Jasper liked a bit too much: rum, punching people in the jaw, and pretty girls in glittery cocktail dresses.

Right now it’s two out of three. Peridot doesn’t see why Jasper likes it so much here –– she finds the jazz a little too mellow and the seats aren’t very comfortable. But Jasper is right at home, ankles crossed on the table, arms spread behind the couch. 

“She’s really good,” Jas says, dazed. Peridot rolls her eyes. “Don’t look at me like that, Peri. Have you ever tried playing the piano? Have you ever tried playing _jazz_  on the piano? Tough as shit, my friend.” Jasper takes a swig of her drink.

“Yeah, yeah,” Peridot says. Then Jasper nudges her with a hard elbow, chuckling in that brusque way.

“She’s been lookin’ at me all night. I might get lucky.”

Peridot crosses her arms as she sits back. “How could you be thinking of things like this when there’s a bounty on your head as we speak.”

“Relax, Dotty––” (”Please don’t call me that––”) “We’re basically unrecognizable in these fine ass tuxes. Remove the ruggedness and you got two respectable people just enjoying some––”

The song ends and people snap their appreciation. Jasper, the sprung idiot that she is, whistles. 

But Jasper wasn’t entirely wrong about Glittery Cocktail Dress eyeing her the whole time. And true, there is something she’s going to get, as Glitter walks right to them right now. (Whether it’s _luck_ , well––that’s up for debate.)

There’s a sway in her walk and Jasper and Peridot are pretty much mute until somehow, someway, Jazzy Fingers here sits herself across Jasper’s lap, stealing a bit of her rum.

Jasper gulps, thrilled. “You got an album, baby?”

“My name is Pearl,” she says coolly, a smirk upon her lips as she pushes back Jasper’s hair nonchalantly. “Not your baby.”

Jasper roars with sudden laughter. Pearl stretches her legs so that her heels rest on Peridot’s lap. Peridot can’t believe any of this is happening.

“Well then, Pearl,” Jasper tries again. She’s fixated on her mouth. “You got an album I can buy?”

“Yes,” she says, and Jasper _thinks_  that’s lust resting beneath Pearl’s half-closed eyelids but oh-ho-ho, _no._ In less than a second Pearl has a glock tucked right under Jasper’s chin.“It’s called the Diamonds send their regards.”

“Holy _shit_ ––”

Jasper quickly moves her neck to the side and Pearl misses. Peridot hits it out of her hand, all the while shouting _so_ many strings of profanity as the _entire lounge staff_ take out their guns. 

Jasper regrettably lifts Pearl off of her and they _run_.

“I can’t believe it,” Jasper says as they sprint through the streets, gunshots following after. She’s shitting herself. Absolutely shitting herself. “That was so fucking _hot_.”

“JASPER!”


	3. when you thought i was asleep (pearlmethyst)

“Man, can’t you change the channel on this thing?”

The projection beams on the ceiling of the living room, with Pearl lying soundly on the couch with Amethyst on the floor next to her. It’s still day out, but Amethyst can still see the images clearly. 

Right now Pearl is dreaming of the ocean. Deep under trenches, darkness illuminated only by the glow of angler fish or jellies. It gets mixed up with other luminescent creatures from space. Or, at least, she thinks so. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that some of the life on Earth isn’t also as alien as Pearl or Garnet is. As Amethyst is. 

It’s calming. But it’s not as funny –– not as uncomfortable –– as watching Pearl dream about Rose, Greg, and pizzas.

Amethyst leans back on the couch, her hair brushing against Pearl’s arm. “You should dream of me next,” she jokes. Half-jokes.

But then the blue circle on the ceiling jumps a little, the images falling away like a shaken Etch-a-Sketch. Amethyst nervously turns her head to look at Pearl to see if she’s stirring, but her eyes are still closed.

“Ahaha––ah, hey!” the projection sounds. It’s Pearl –– not like the now Pearl, but the Pearl from way back. Even before the leg warmers. Amethyst stares up in wonder.

“I’m gonna get you, Peeeeaarl!” Amethyst is a running around as a dog –– Pearl used to love dogs, before the time one –– well, that’s another long story isn’t it ––

The scene changes. Amethyst is a parrot atop Pearl’s shoulder as the four of them, dressed like pirates –– that was fun, one of Amethyst’s favorite missions –– are battling and bubbling the whale monster. They had help from the humans that time, and Pearl didn’t really get the pirate lingo so Amethyst supplied it in her ear to help her out. At the end of that mission when Amethyst was herself again, Pearl hugged her.

The projection flips again. At this point it’s just going through little moments, most Amethyst remembers. She laughs at some of them and then is silent for others, and then she wonders –– Steven said dreams weren’t supposed to make sense, and yet ––

“I wish things were like that again,” she says. 

“Me, too.”

When Amethyst turns around Pearl’s eyes are open, watching the projections that are still going. Amethyst blunders for annoyed words and outrage but they die down when she sees a young Pearl lifting Amethyst off the ground and tossing her in the air and catching her, smiling and laughing.

Amethyst sighs. “Jerk.”


	4. under the stars and in the grass (pearlnet)

Sometimes Garnet sings. 

She uses the sounds at the core of her being for this, not the ones made in her lungs and her throat, and when she does this, it sounds like it’s coming from everywhere, not from her mouth. It feels like it’s coming from gaseous cores, just before the stellar fusion ends in iron. Garnet’s sound is the cradle of white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes, and only she, you, and Rose, can hear it.

In the Strawberry Fields where you have finished burying the shards you could find, the sky has gone in a palette of sorrow flecked with diamond tears. (Not Diamonds. No. They cry for something else entirely.) You lie on a hill, and listen to Garnet sing songs of mourning. 

(You hear Rose join her, crystalline harmonies like stones skipping across an ocean, or a pulsar. But then she stops.) 

You don’t know where she is until you open your eyes and she’s sitting beside your resting head, and she is done with the song.

“I’ve never heard that song in Homeworld,” you say.

“It’s not from Homeworld,” she says simply, worn. She removes her visor and lies down next to your aching feet. 

(These bodies are not from Homeworld either.)

Garnet doesn’t ask you if you’ll miss it. She knows the answer, and even when that answer will change. You know this more than you know yourself.

“We have to forget those songs,” Garnet says.

Something aches in between your false lungs but you find where it hurts and you close it. “That’s okay.” Your fingers lightly tap the gem on Garnet’s palm, Ruby’s. “We’ll make new ones.”

You can hear the smile in Garnet’s voice. “New songs. Our own songs.”

The words echo in your mind. You visualize leaping through that atmosphere and into the cosmos, where your particles first came together, and then falling back down: our own, our own, our own.


End file.
